Head Over Heels (20 page)

When that was over, Sawyer had a baseball game, and to his great satisfaction, they kicked the firefighters’ collective asses. Then he had a late dinner with Jax at the bar where he pretended not to be watching the front door for Chloe, who didn’t make an appearance. At some point, Sawyer was reminded by Jax that as upcoming best man, he’d better be planning a righteous bachelor party.

Sawyer called Ford and told him to get on that.

The next day, Sawyer was trying to catch up on his ever-growing paperwork when dispatch sent him out to talk to a woman who was claiming she’d been robbed. But when Sawyer got to the beauty salon on the pier, the woman wanted to tell him about her twelve-dollar manicure.

“Ma’am,” Sawyer said. “You said you were robbed.”

“I’m getting to that. The place is all new on the inside, you see?”

“So?”

“So there’s no way they can possibly be making it work with twelve-dollar manicures; clearly it’s a front for criminal activity.”

Sawyer nearly arrested her for being annoying. Instead, he told her if she stopped talking, he
might
see his way to being charitable enough to not ticket her for making a nuisance call.

Then, since he was there on the pier anyway, he went into Eat Me for food, where Amy took one look at him and promptly served him a double bacon blue burger and a huge helping of pie. “Oh, and heads-up—Chloe’s here.” She hitched her head in the direction of the table behind him, where Chloe was sitting with Anderson, the guy who ran the hardware store.

Amy left Sawyer alone to eat, and he forced his gaze away from the couple. It was no business of his who Chloe ate with. But as he sat there with his burger, Sawyer wondered how he’d feel if she
were
seeing other people.

Shit, he knew the answer to that without even putting his mind in gear. Two months ago, he’d have laughed at anyone who suggested he’d be this attracted and confused and crazy over a woman. But he felt like he was in a fucking tailspin. When he got a call from dispatch, he jumped on his radio so fast he nearly spilled his soda. Used to eating on the road, he grabbed the second half of his burger and ordered himself not to look over at Chloe as he exited the diner.

But he totally looked.

She smiled and waved as if she were truly happy to see him, and his dumb-ass heart lightened. It took some effort to stop picturing her face as he drove to Delilah Goldstein’s house. Delilah was eighty-nine, and alone, and once in a while she called in odd reports to 9-1-1. Lucille had adopted her into her posse, but Delilah wasn’t as mobile as the other blue-haired hellions that Lucille hung out with.

“What’s the matter, Mrs. Goldstein?” Sawyer asked when he stood on her porch.

She peered at him through the screen. “Sawyer? Is that you, dear? Have you been playing doorbell ditch again?”

He bit back his sigh. “No, ma’am. Not in about twenty-five years. I’m a sheriff now, remember? You called in that you needed help.”

“Yes, I do need help. I keep hearing Frank Sinatra singing through my TV when it’s turned off.”

Sawyer paused a beat, then glanced through the screen into her living room. Her TV was definitely off. “Huh.” He scratched his chin. He’d seen and heard it all, or so he thought. But this was a new one even for him.

He walked into her living room and squatted in front of the TV, which was at least fifteen years old. The surface didn’t have a spec of dust on it, which took a definite talent. But he wasn’t hearing any Frank Sinatra. “Do you like Frank Sinatra?” he finally asked Mrs. Goldstein.

“Oh yes, of course. My Stan—God bless his soul—
loved
Frank. We used to listen to him every afternoon at this time of day. Sometimes we’d dance in the living room.” She sighed, the sound an expression of grief as she pressed her hand to her mouth.

To give her a minute, Sawyer made a pretense of checking out the back of the TV, but Christ, sometimes this job sucked golf balls.

“Why do you think it happens?” she whispered. “Do you think it’s Stan’s ghost, or Frank’s? Because as fond as I am of Frank’s music, I don’t want him here in my house, watching me. It feels…scary.”

Sawyer straightened and looked her right in the eyes. “It’s Stan,” he said. “Not Frank.”

“You’re sure?”

“
Positive
. And I think that you should just enjoy the music, Mrs. Goldstein. Don’t be afraid.”

She smiled at him, her voice tremulous. “You’re a good man, Sheriff.”

At least she hadn’t said sweet.

She made him stay for coffee and a brownie. “Are you ever going to corral in that wild child Chloe Traeger and marry her?” she asked, bagging up a brownie for him to take with him.

He was so thrown by this question that he just stared at her.

“I only ask because Chloe comes over when I get the headaches. She massages my temples with this fantastic homemade balm she creates. It’s wonderful. She’s wonderful. She’d make such a great sheriff’s wife.”

Chloe, a wife? The mere thought should’ve made him laugh, but it didn’t.

He knew better. Chloe had to be free to do as she wanted; it wasn’t in her nature to be “corralled.” And it wasn’t in his to try to do so. “I’m not exactly marriage material myself, Mrs. Goldstein.”

“Oh, hogwash. That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. You young people have no sense of romance. Why, in my day, if you wanted a girl, you went after her. You made her yours.”

Yeah, and wouldn’t that go over well with Chloe. She just
loved
it when someone told her what to do. Sawyer moved to the door. “Have a good day, Mrs. Goldstein.”

“Don’t you mean ‘mind my own business’?”

Sawyer grimaced, and she laughed. “Listen, dear. I’m old, and probably far too sentimental, but I’m not dead. Not yet. Don’t close yourself off to what could be. Or when you’re as old as I am, what will be coming out of your TV?”

Metallica sounded good to him.

It was late afternoon, and he was on the road when he got the call that the convenience store that had been robbed several weeks back had set off their alarm again. He raced over there, lights and sirens blaring, to find the owner and the clerk standing outside waiting for him. When Sawyer got out of his SUV, the owner looked at his watch. “Wow, seven minutes,” he said, sounding impressed. He smiled at Sawyer. “We just had a new alarm system installed, and this was our dry run. Nice job, Sheriff. Thank you so much.”

Christ. Sawyer did his best to unclench his jaw before pointing out that he wasn’t the convenience store’s personal security consultant, and they couldn’t call 9-1-1 unless there was a true emergency. And then, what the hell, he also took the opportunity to buy two candy bars.

By the time Sawyer pulled up to his house that night, a rainless lightning storm had moved in. Not good. With how dry it had been, it was like playing Russian roulette with lightning-bolt-sized matches on dry timber.

His place looked dark and empty. Empty, he knew, of food, of warmth, of anything remotely welcoming, new paint or not. He walked through his front yard and stopped short at the sight of Chloe sitting on his porch.

She was wearing a long coat and tight leather boots up past her knees but was still huddled into herself for warmth, and without letting himself think, Sawyer pulled her upright and wrapped his arms around her because
she
wasn’t dark and empty. She was the opposite, and as she leaned in to him, a feeling surged through him that felt startlingly like relief. And need.

So much fucking need. “You’re frozen solid,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”

She simply shook her head and pressed her icy nose to his throat, making him suck in a breath. He opened his front door and ushered her inside, where he cranked the heat before turning back to her.

She stood there hugging herself and flashed him a very small smile. “So, um, have you ever done something stupid and then had regrets?”

His heart contracted painfully. If this was where she said she’d just slept with Anderson, he was going to have to shoot the guy, which would suck because Sawyer’s department tended to frown on excessive lethal force. “I try really hard not to do anything stupid,” he said carefully. “But it happens. Ditto on the regrets. What’s this about, Chloe?”

She looked away, but Sawyer hooked a finger under her chin, turning her face back to his. “Me?” he asked. “You regretting us?”

“No. Never.”

He nodded like he understood, but he didn’t. “You and Anderson?”

Her eyes widened. She looked startled, then insulted. “Anderson gave me his twenty-percent employee discount for materials for the spa, so I bought him lunch.”

Sawyer let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, pulled her in again, and kissed her, his body reacting so quickly that it caught him by surprise, and he heard himself groan into her mouth.

Chloe lifted her head. “Do you remember when I said sometimes I need to feel? And that sometimes I do stupid things to get there, like pierce a nipple or hang glide or—”

He ran his gaze over her, thwarted by her damn coat. “Are you hurt? Are you—”

“No.” She fumbled with the buttons, then dropped her coat. Beneath she was utterly, gorgeously naked. And beautiful. So fucking beautiful that Sawyer lost his words and his mind. “God, look at you,” he said hoarsely.

“Welcome to my latest crazy,” she whispered, wearing nothing but those knee-high boots and an unsure smile. “Oh, and you should probably know, I’m quite possibly hypothermic.”

“Luckily I’ve been trained to handle this situation.”

Chloe smiled, and he realized she was nervous. He was nervous, too, which made no sense to him whatsoever. They’d been here before, right here. He pulled off his shirt and reached for her at the same moment she leaped at him, wrapping her legs around his hips. He had one hand on her ass, the other high on her back and in her long hair as he carried her to his bedroom. Lying her on the bed, he stepped back only to get rid of his gun and phone, then strip out of the rest of his clothes, which he did in less than five seconds.
Mother of God, let nobody have an emergency tonight, he thought.

He had a moment where he stared down at her on his bed in nothing but those fuck-me boots, not wanting to take them off. But then she shivered, and he reluctantly tugged them from her feet and dropped them to the floor before shoving her beneath his thick covers and following her in. “Step one,” he said. “We conserve body heat.”

“Good plan.” She turned to him, wrapping her frozen limbs around him.

He hissed in a breath when she pressed her frozen toes into his calves, but her own breathing wasn’t anywhere close to even, and he paused. “Need your inhaler?”

She shook her head. “I need you.”

He opened his mouth, but she put a finger over his lips. “I’m done talking now.”

Yeah. So was he. But when her icy fingers walked their way down his chest and stomach, he sucked in another harsh breath and grabbed her hand, rubbing it between his to warm it up.

She laughed at him, but he knew how to shut her up. He kissed her hard and long and deep, running a hand down her quivering body, sliding it between her thighs. Ahhhh. She wasn’t cold here. She was already hot and slick and ready. “You want me.”

She smiled. “Yes. Whatever this is that we’re doing, I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

Her softly whispered words staggered him. It hadn’t been a confession of love. Hell, he knew that she didn’t do confessions of love.

So why did it feel like one?

Because he wasn’t doing so well at controlling his emotions with her, that’s why. “I want you, too,” he said, sure as hell not able to remember a time that he hadn’t.

Pulling him down, she kissed him, and he let himself sink into the kiss, into her, willingly drowning in her heat, grateful that he couldn’t talk and kiss at the same time because he was dangerously close to spilling his guts.

“Now,” she said against his lips.

“No, not yet. I want to—”

“
Sawyer
.”

Like he really stood a chance against the sound of his name on her lips. Cradled by her open thighs, he slid into her.

Home.

Slow, he reminded himself, searching her face for signs of distress. But he found only desire and hunger and closed his eyes as her hands ran over his chest, his arms, everywhere she could reach, swamping him with pleasure. He pulled back and thrust again, deeper now, groaning at the feel of her, but hesitated when her nails dug into his shoulders.

“No, don’t stop,” she said, soft and throaty, still showing no signs of trouble. “Please don’t stop.” Accompanying this sexy little plea, she made a restless circular motion with her hips, and he lost the tenuous grip on his control.

This morning he’d run three miles on the beach, and he’d been in good enough shape not to feel the exertion overly much. Now, here in her arms, buried in her body, his breath was coming in ragged pants. He reared up on his hands, back arched to get as deep as he could as he began to move. When she cried out this time, he recognized it was a plea for more, and he gave it.

She cupped his face, slid her fingers into his hair, and beamed up at him. God, he loved her smile. She felt so good. Her eyes were a staggering, fathomless green, and looking at her made him ache so much that he ran out of air.

Completely. Ran. Out. He struggled to breathe and thought this must be how she felt. But then she pressed her mouth to his and gave him her air. He groaned and continued to move in and out of her, harder now, faster, and then she came, her eyes filled with a faint, endearing surprise as her body clenched around him.

God, she felt so good. Just watching her sent him spiraling. It began deep inside, racing through his body so that his arms trembled, and he dropped his head with a rough groan, burying his face in the curve of her neck as he completely lost himself.

Chapter 21

 
T
he next day Chloe gave a yoga class for one. Allie never stopped talking the whole time, about the amazing burgers at Eat Me, her Cute Guy sighting at the liquor store, how there was never a line at the post office here…She loved the people and wasn’t sure she missed anyone from home.

“Not anyone?” Chloe asked.

Allie lifted a shoulder.

“It’s okay to miss him,” Chloe said quietly. “It’s okay to miss John.”

And for the first time all week, Allie clammed up.

They were still stretching on the beach when Maddie and Jax pulled up to the inn. Maddie started to get out of the Jeep, but Jax drew her back, buried his hands in her hair, and kissed her.

“He’s going to inhale her right up,” Allie noted, sounding a little wistful.

“They’re getting married. I think all almost-marrieds act like that.” Chloe winced as soon as she said it, remembering why Allie was here. “I’m sorry, I—”

“No. Don’t be sorry.” Allie sat Indian style on the mat and stared out at the water. “I can’t hide out from it forever.”

“I know you’ve been in contact with your family. Have you called John at all?”

“No.” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “I made a mistake, Chloe. A big one. Things got intense before the wedding. There was so much to do, and everyone was trying to be involved…” She shook her head. “I lost sight of what I was doing, and why. John wanted to be a part of the planning, and I told him I could handle it. A bride should be able to handle it. I pushed him away. And then when he finally took a big step back, I fell apart and pushed him farther.” She bit her lip. “And then on my wedding day, I felt alone. So alone. It was all of my own making, but I couldn’t see that.” She turned to Chloe. “So I ran. When the going got tough, I ran like a little girl.”

Chloe understood both the pushing people away and the feeling alone. And hell, if she was being honest, she understood the running too. She’d spent years perfecting all three. “It’s never too late to face a regret.” She handed Allie her cell phone. “You don’t have to tell him where you are or—”

Allie snatched the phone so fast that Chloe’s head spun. She rolled up her mat and moved toward the inn to give Allie some privacy, but before she’d gotten out of earshot she heard, “Baby? It’s me.” Allie’s breath hitched audibly. “John, I’m so sorry—in some Podunk little place called Lucky Harbor. Really? You will? You’ll come? Oh, John…”

Sawyer knocked on his father’s door but wasn’t surprised when no one answered. For three days now, it’d been the same story. Worried, Sawyer let himself in and dropped the two bags of groceries he’d brought with him on the kitchen table.

From somewhere in the house, he heard a toilet flush, and then his father shuffled into the kitchen, scowling. “Nice knock,” he grumbled at Sawyer.

“I did knock. And I called, too. You’re avoiding me.”

“I was on the pot.”

“I’ve been calling all week. Wanted to help you fix the gutters.”

“My boy did it.”

Okay, last Sawyer checked,
he
was Nolan’s boy. “I would have—”

“I hate carrots,” his father said, nosing through the bags. “And blueberries. Christ, this is fucking sissy food.”

“It’s good for you.” Sawyer eyed his father. White wife-beater dulled by years of washings, dark blue trousers hitched up to just beneath a beer belly. “You need to eat healthier.”

“I’ve eaten how I want for sixty years.”

“Yes,” Sawyer said. “Hence your health problems.”

“Goddammit!” His father waved a hand and knocked the bag to the floor. “
My
business, not yours.”

Whether he’d accidentally hit the food or not, it pissed Sawyer off. He could handle drug dealers and gangbangers without losing his cool, but five minutes with his father and his temper was lit. “Listen—”

“No,
you
listen,” his father snarled, spitting out his words like venom. “Where in the hell do
you
get off telling me how to run my life?”

“Since your doctor said you were going to die if you didn’t change!”

“Well, fuck the doctor!” Nolan bellowed. “He’s a twelve-year-old, skinny-ass punk kid.”

“Dr. Scott is
my
age,” Sawyer said, keeping his voice quiet and controlled with great effort. “Josh and I went to school together.” In fact, the two of them had spent many, many Saturdays in detention together, driving the high school teachers insane.

“You mean you were good-for-nothing
thugs
together,” Nolan snapped.

“Whatever he was, Josh is a doctor now. And a good one,” Sawyer said. “Jesus, Dad! You can’t hold his past against him.” But then he let out a short, mirthless laugh. “What am I saying? Of course you can hold his past against him. You do mine.”

Nolan jabbed a meaty finger to the door. “Get out.”

“Gladly.” Sawyer strode to the door. “Tell your perfect little gofer boy that the porch light’s out.”

Exhausted as she was, Chloe did the happy dance around the sunroom. No, she corrected. Not the sunroom—the Lucky Harbor Day Spa.

Well, it was
almost
a spa anyway. It was at least finished enough to have provided a short menu of services for the family of sisters, who as of two hours ago had checked out after a long weekend stay.

The week before, Jax had thrown together a changing room, hooked up the plumbing, and painted the last of the trim an hour before the two massage chairs for pedicures had been delivered, along with the shipment of towels and robes. Chloe already had a portable massage table, so that hadn’t been an issue.

Granted, there was still more to do to make it a full-service spa, but she had made it work for now.

Grinning, she spun in a circle and collapsed onto a cushy chair. The important thing was that the weekend had been a huge success. And fun. It’d been a sister-team effort, with Tara making No-Guilt-Here foods and Maddie introducing “chick night” events complete with knitting sessions and tissues-required classic movies. Chloe had given facials, mud skin treatments, and massages, along with yoga classes.

Every single one of the guests had not only rebooked for other treatments but had bought gift certificates for friends and family.

Chloe was extremely aware of how much she’d enjoyed the weekend, and exactly what she was giving up to have, hopefully, many more. She knew offers like the one she’d had from the San Diego spa didn’t grow on trees, but she felt committed to Lucky Harbor, to being here. To her sisters as well.

Her heart wanted to add Sawyer to that list, but her brain reminded her that Sawyer was fun and heat and magic—but that he’d not exactly shown any signs of wanting more.

Neither have you…

She leaned back in the chair and sighed. It was nine o’clock at night, and for the first time in days, she was all alone. Blissful, she put up her tired feet and closed her eyes.

“Aw, look at her, all plum tuckered out. I guess taking people’s money is hard work.”

At Tara’s soft, teasing Southern drawl, Chloe opened her eyes and found her sisters standing in the doorway. “Hey. I thought you’d both left.”

“Not yet, sugar.” Tara was carrying a bottle of wine in one hand, three glasses in her other. She set them down on the low-lying counter that Chloe had just cleaned, then plopped onto the spa chair and stretched out her long legs. As always, she was in heels. She kicked them off and wriggled her toes. “Lord Almighty, I should have done that about four hours ago.” Thoughtfully, she studied the rack of nail colors.

Maddie sat, too. “Long weekend.” She smiled at Chloe. “I had a very lovely time just now adding up all the receipts. You’ve made our bank account very happy.”

Chloe wanted to ask
And how about you two, are you happy?
But she didn’t. She was afraid of the answer. “I took a booking for six girlfriends for next weekend. Seems we’re going to be known for the girls’ weekend out sort of thing.”

“There’s worse things to be known for,” Maddie said, covering Chloe’s hand in hers. “Heads-up—mushy alert warning.”

“What? No, I—”

But before Chloe had finished sputtering, Maddie reeled her in and hugged her.

“Tell her you love her, Mad,” Tara said, still prone on her chair. “It’ll make her as wild as a peach orchard hog.”

Chloe, laughing now, tried to escape, but Maddie squeezed her tighter. “I
lurve
you,” Maddie said with as much sap as she could.

Chloe stuck her finger into her mouth and then stuck the wet digit in Maddie’s ear.

Maddie collapsed in laughter while screaming “ewwww” and dropped to the floor.

“A wet willy,” Tara said calmly, nodding. “Nice tactic.”

Chloe brushed her hands together and smirked down at Maddie. “Round two?”

Maddie rolled to her belly and cushioned her head on her arms. “Hell, no. I’m too tired.” She crawled to the spa chair where Tara was still sprawled and pulled herself up, curling to share the space. She eyed the nail colors too, then picked out a baby blue. And then a siren red. She looked at Chloe speculatively, then grabbed a metallic silver, and then also a solid black. “Can you open the windows, Chloe? It’s not so cold out, and you’ll need fresh air for this.”

Chloe dutifully opened the windows.

“Now sit,” Maddie said.

Which Chloe did gladly since she was exhausted.

Maddie pulled Chloe’s feet into her lap. “Nice toes. You got them from Mom. Mine are short and stumpy from my dad, of course.” She painted Chloe’s big toe the metallic silver, then painted every other toe before filling in the opposite ones with the black.

“Silver and black?” Tara asked, amused. “Different. Suits her.”

“Yeah, I thought so, too. You’re getting red, by the way,” Maddie said, and proceeded to switch to Tara’s feet. “And you have pretty feet too, you bitch. Pour the wine, Tara.”

Tara arched a brow in Chloe’s direction, like
look at our little mouse now
. But she obeyed and poured three glasses of wine, handing one to Chloe and another to Maddie. Finally she took her own and lifted it. “To a hell of a day and a very pretty bottom line.”

Tara and Maddie drank deeply to that. Chloe watched them, an unexpected warmth spreading inside her chest. So much had changed so quickly. Tara and Maddie, Ford and Jax, the spa, and of course, Sawyer, who’d made an indelible mark on her life, more than anyone else ever had. She still didn’t know what would become of them, and imagining that someday he’d tire of her hurt like hell, so she let her thoughts spin back to her sisters. They would always be here for her. She knew that now. It wasn’t just a concept anymore. It was a fact. They were her anchor in a lifetime spent free-floating.

Chloe set aside her untouched wine. She wanted a clear head for this. But more than that, she also wanted to be able to drive herself to Sawyer’s later tonight. Thanks to their very busy schedule, it’d been six nights since she’d last been in his bed, naked in his arms, panting his name, letting him take away everything but what they gave each other. Funny, because she’d gone a whole year without sex, and now six days was too long. Or was it simply Sawyer himself that she missed?

“I can’t believe it, really,” Maddie said.

Chloe started guiltily. “What?”

Maddie began to paint her own toes with the baby-blue polish. “How far we’ve come. I can’t believe it.”

Okay, good. They weren’t talking about Chloe’s sex life.

Tara nodded. “Do you realize that we’ve each managed to bring a vital part of ourselves to the inn?”

Chloe stared down at her sparkling toes. “Is that it?” she wondered. “Or is it that this place has given each of us something we needed?” When nobody spoke, she looked up. Both her sisters were staring at her, eyes moist.

“Oh, Christ.” Chloe sighed and grabbed some napkins, shoving one at each of them. “I swear, if either of you cries, I’m giving out more wet willies, followed by wedgies. I mean it.”

“I have a better idea.” Maddie stood up. “Our first night here together we stayed up all night decorating our poor Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Do you remember?”

“Hard to forget,” Tara said. “Chloe turned our faces and hair green with her facial and conditioner masks, remember?”

“Hey,” Chloe said in her defense. “It improved your skin, didn’t it?”

“Excuse me.” Maddie tapped a fingernail against the wineglass to get their attention, then cleared her throat dramatically. “I’m trying to recount our adventures here, so pay attention. And I do have a point.”

“You going to get to it anytime soon?” Chloe asked.

“Do you or do you not remember when we decided to make this place a B&B?” Maddie asked. “We—”

“
We
?” Tara interrupted, laughing. “If we’re remembering, then let’s remember how it really happened, shall we?
We
didn’t decide anything, Maddie.
You
two corralled me into the B&B thing, specifically the chef part. And you did it by dangling Ford in front of me.”

“Oh, and that turned out so awful, right?” Chloe responded dryly. “And let me guess—you
hate
being your own boss. You hate ordering us around in the mornings to do your bidding. Is that what you’re saying?”